Cacao (chocolate, cocoa) in Maya archaeology, ethnography, religion, iconography, and ethnohistory

Cacao is a major food crop for Guatemalan people today; cacao was a major food crop for indigenous people a thousand years ago also. Although there are some areas of Guatemala where cacao is common, it can be grown almost anywhere that you provide some shade and enough moisture. I have about eight plants outside in my garden and about the same number inside my house at an elevation of about 1500 meters in chilly Guatemala City. There is a cacao tree inside the museum of Copan, Honduras, that flowers and somehow even fruits (how the flowers of a single tree are fertilized I will have to leave to a botanist).

In the last several years pre-Columbian Maya cacao has become a popular topic, after all, most of us drink chocolate and enjoy chocolate candy. Hundreds of books exist on chocolate and many ethnobotanical monographs on cacao and chocolate have been published in the last few years.

Cacao effigy vessels from a private colection

Cacao in Maya archaeology

My first encounter with Maya cacao was in 1965, at Tikal. At age 19, while a student at Harvard, working at Tikal twelve months for the University of Pennsylvania, I discovered a polychrome painted Maya vessel filled with food remains. The pot was about half filled with crusted remains of food; in the crust were the hollow shapes of what had once been a bean-like seed.

Since this was in 1965, and today it is 2008, I don’t exactly have my field notes handy. But at age 19 I assumed these were frijoles (beans) in the pot. As I look back in my memory, I now question whether the “beans” were probably cacao. To tell for sure would require finding the University of Pennsylvania records. I tended to save the contents of any artifact I felt needed more study; since I was only a student, I was petrified of making a mistake, so I put everything into a bag for the lab that I thought might be of future use.

During late 1965, I excavated, and subsequently prepared my undergraduate thesis on this Burial 196, Structure 5D-73, a five-terraced stone-faced pyramid but with no stone temple. This was located facing the side of Temple II (Str. 5D73 was next to the Central Acropolis).

This tomb is known popularly as the Tomb of the Jade Jaguar.

I am still studying cacao (and jaguars) after all these decades

During the years that FLAAR organized educational field trips to help interested people learn about Maya culture, we often came into contact with cacao trees in the area of the Rio de la Pasion and Rio Usumacinta. But the major areas for cacao plantations is in Alta Verapaz area and across the other side of the mountains, in the piedmont area between the Mexican border of Chiapas and Escuintla. Chocola and Takalik Abaj are two out of thousands of areas where you can easily find cacao groves today in the piedmont area.

Since there are already many ethnobotanists, archaeologists, and iconographers already studying cacao, where FLAAR can assist to provide something special, namely to utilize our experience with advanced digital photography to obtain better than average photographic records of cacao. We then test and evaluate different kinds of wide-format inkjet printers to print large-sized photographs. This kind of photograph can be used in museums or for general photo exhibits.

Spuhl Virtu RS Printing Samples

LexJet Legend UV Printing Samples

Achiote (Annatto) and vanilla are grown in the same areas as cacao

Achiote, Bixa orellana, annatto, is a major food crop of the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala. Most of the same villages that have cacao orchards in the house lots also have achiote. This is because the ancient Maya used achiote powder to dye their cacao red. I have noticed two different kinds of achiote: that grown in Chisec area of Alta Verapaz and that nearer the ruins of Cancuen.

I have also found vanilla plants in some of the village orchards of Alta Verapaz. Although vanilla is best known from the El Tajin area of Veracruz, Mexico, and Tabasco, you can find vanilla being grown in many lowland areas of Guatemala.

Cacao as a sacred drink for ritual use

Many pre-Columbian polychrome Maya vases have hieroglyphic inscriptions that indicate these fired clay pots were used to hold cacao drink. The importance of cacao as a special drink is emphasized by the presence of actual clay effigy containers in the size and shape of a cacao pod. I thank the La Ruta Maya Foundation for facilitating our photography of three such cacao vessels (we show one here). We are preparing a longer and more detailed report on cacao, as well as on the digital camera and lighting equipment used in this photography.

First posted June 25, 2008.